Throughout music history, "play" has been part of the core dynamics of many cultures. Playfulness, role taking, and rule following have long been part of musical performance, composition, and consumption, albeit with different connotations.

Dr. Arno Simons is a social science researcher at Humboldt-University Berlin. His research covers various aspects of the relationship between science, technology and society. With his additional background as a Hip Hop DJ, Arno knows how to reflect on sample music from both from a theoretical and a practical perspective.

Arno argues that, from a sociological perspective, sample music can be analyzed as a form of play. He shows that different connotation of “play”, such as playfulness, role taking, and rule following, also apply to sample music and its underlying social dynamics. Looking through this lens reveals, among other things, that sample music emerges from the co-constitution of music, technology and culture as a process of collective creation, which demands re-negotiating the meaning of authorship.